Serbian Orthodox Church

Information Service of
the Serbian Orthodox Church
Oktober 4, 2004

MEMORIAL SERVICE FOR VICTIMS OF NAZI TERROR

In the period from 1941 to 1944 a concentration camp for Serbs, Roma and Jews was created by the Nazi occupying forces in the village of Jajinci near Belgrade, the location of the former military proving ground of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. One hundred and twenty seven thousand men, women and children perished in this hellhole. The camp was liberated on October 2, 1944 and the Jajinci Memorial Complex was opened in 1964.

Sixty years later, on Saturday, October 2, 2004, the surviving concentration camp prisoners, members of their families and friends gathered at the execution site of the former Jajinci concentration camp. Protopresbyter-Stavrophor Professor Dr. Dimitrije Kalezic and Protodeacon Professor Radomir Rakic served a short memorial service. In his sermon Father Dimitrije emphasized the importance of their suffering and martyrs’ deaths. Also addressing those present was the director of the Office for Morale of the Serbia and Montenegro Army General Staff, Major-General Vidosav Kovacevic, who talked about the price of freedom and the patriotism of those who perished at the execution site. Ms. Radmila Hrustanovic reminded those present that 127,000 patriots were killed on this location and that the primary reason for their persecution was that they were Serbs, Jews and Roma.

Representatives of the Serbia and Montenegro Army, Belgrade municipalities and other institutions laid wreaths at the memorial marker.

The memory of those who perished in this Belgrade concentration camp was honored with gun salutes and a minute of silence.

SERBS FROM METROPOLITANATE OF ZAGREB AND LJUBLJANA
VISIT BELGRADE PATRIARCHATE

A group of about 30 people visited the Patriarchate and the Serbian Orthodox Church Museum on Friday, October 1, 2004 at the invitation of His Eminence Metropolitan Jovan of Zagreb, Ljubljana and all Italy. Director Slobodan Mileusnic welcomed the guests to the Museum and acquainted them with its cultural heritage, showing them Sister Jefimija’s Praise to Prince Lazarus, the cape of Prince Lazarus, the tapestry of King Milutin, the charter of the Empress Maria Theresa and many other items. During their visit to the Patriarchate chapel of St. Simeon the Myrrh-gusher Metropolitan Jovan also showed the guests the meeting room of the Holy Assembly of Bishops and the painting Seoba Srbalja (The Migration of the Serbs), the work of the famous Serbian painter Paja Jovanovic, which decorates it.

Metropolitan Jovan’s guests also toured some of the greatest of Serbian holy shrines: the monasteries of Studenica, Zica, the Pillars of St. George in Ras, Sopocani, Veluce and Ljubostinja.

BELLS OF CHURCH DEDICATED TO ST. MAXIM
THE CONFESSOR CONSECRATED

The church of St. Maxim of Confessor is located in Novi Kostolac, a mining village on the Danube located 12 kilometers from Pozarevac in the Diocese of Branicevo. Since it’s founding in the 1940s this village has never had a Church and hence it has been a mission parish in the Diocese of Branicevo. Building of the church of St. Maxim the Confessor began in the summer of 1999 and all that remains is the completion of the interior. This is the first church in Serbia to be dedicated to St. Maxim the Confessor.

Kostolac is a unique place with some fifteen nations from all regions of the former Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia – the former Yugoslavia on a small scale, so to speak. Here, in this very place, the church of St. Maxim sprang up, a Saint of the East and the West. He lived in Constantinople in the 7th century A.D. and was banished to the West. He found sanctuary in Rome and was acknowledged by the Western brothers, unlike the Easterners of the time who had banished him. After several trials by the Byzantines, he was banished, after his hand and tongue were amputated, to the Caucasus, where he died in 662. Today a small church dedicated to St. Maxim the Confessor exists over his grave in Georgia.

The parish of St. Maxim is just beginning to live its liturgical life. In it everything is a first: the first liturgy, the first group baptism in the Danube, the first religious procession through the streets on the occasion of the celebration of the newly chosen village patrol saint’s day of St. Prokopios (July 21), etc. The parish priest, who is the author of this text, together with his flock, shares close ties with his spiritual father, Bishop Ignjatije of Branicevo, who has on numerous occasions visited the church, provided advice and conducted no less than three consecrations (the site, the crosses and the bells). This year Bishop Ignjatije began the celebration of his tenth year in office in the church of St. Maxim with the consecration of the bells and phiala on September 24 in the presence of our dear and respected guest from Athens, Metropolitan Joannis (Zizioulas) of Pergamum, and many people. Of course, the first Holy Hierarchal Liturgy will be served on the day of the consecration of the Church itself.

During the course of the following year Father Stamatis Skliris, a painter from Athens, will begin painting the frescoes, which will add to the church’s uniqueness and originality. Even though it is still under construction, the churchyard is already decorated with manicured lawns, many young fruit trees and the newly consecrated phiala with a fountain above which is a fresco of the Mother of God with Christ called the Life-Bearing Source. The phiala is a place where baptisms will be held in summer and water will be consecrated on the Theophany in winter.

It is important to emphasize the selfless participation of the faithful not only at liturgy but also during the construction work, where everyone took part according to his abilities thus leaving a permanent mark on this church. Of course, nothing is finished yet, original efforts are still before us, and the building of this church is an open field for new creativity. Finally, in accordance to the wise teaching of St. Maxim, the real Truth regarding the world and humans will be revealed, and accordingly the church of St. Maxim the Confessor will shine in its full glory.

Father Aleksandar Mihailovic
Pozarevac

[Serbian Translation Services]